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Missing! The mystery of Britain’s vanishing workforce

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

LONDON — It’s a mystery testing the finest minds in Whitehall.What exactly has happened to more than half a million British workers who have vanished from the U.K. workforce since the outbreak of COVID-19?U.K. Treasury officials have been left scratching their heads by statistics showing that while unemployment is at a historic low, there are 516,000 more working-age Brits classed as “economically inactive” than there were before the pandemic.The collapse in productivity has served a crippling blow to the already-struggling British economy, which the IMF predicts will be the only major Western economy to shrink in 2023.The scale of the problem is such that U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt now plans to make tackling economic inactivity one of the centerpieces of his first budget statement next week. “The U.K. is really quite unique among rich countries in having had a persistent fall in the size of its workforce after the pandemic,” said Xiaowei Xu, senior research econo...

Bravo Poland for supporting Ukraine. Now make nice with Germany

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven is a senior adviser at Berlin Global Advisors. He is a former German Ambassador to Poland.As Ukraine’s staunchest supporter, Poland’s place both in Europe and the world has been transformed. And with United States President Joe Biden recently completing his second visit to the Polish capital — even though he’s yet to visit Berlin or Paris — Europe’s heart, so it seems, now beats in Warsaw.Yet, the Polish government’s ongoing nationalist, illiberal policies continue to undermine Europe’s unity at the very same time.From a personal perspective, as a former German Ambassador to Poland, the most painful — and counterproductive — part of Polish policy is its antagonism toward my country. And if Europe is to succeed in beating Russian aggression, Warsaw and Berlin must learn to work together.Before Russia’s invasion, U.S.-Polish relations had hit rock bottom. As a presidential candidate, Biden cited Poland alongside Belarus as a ...

Move over Trump, Johnson and Fabricant, there’s a new terrible haircut in town

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.That sound you can hear is Michael Fabricant screaming in anger.Fabricant is a British member of parliament far better known for what we might charitably call his haircut than for any of his political beliefs (although this week he did say that older people are better at spelling, which is competlie nonspence).Imagine someone cosplaying as Boris Johnson never having actually seen Boris Johnson and you’re getting close to the horror show that is Fabricant’s hair do (maybe hair don’t would be better). It looks very much like a wig but he says he isn’t, although he has admitted that “there is some — but only some — enhancement of the follicular area.”Anyway, Fabricant would almost certainly be horrified if he knew that he is now not even close to having European politics’ oddest haircut. Please welcome to the stage Rain Epler, a former government minister from the Estonian nationalist party EKRE, who was...

Submarine scramble: Tech issues could threaten 3-nation megaplan for the Pacific

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

On Monday, the leaders of the U.S., U.K. and Australia will gather in San Diego on the edge of the Pacific Ocean to announce how they plan to work together to build nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian navy.The AUKUS agreement, a sprawling military pact first announced 18 months ago, promises to bring seismic changes to how the world’s most secretive military technologies are shared among allies, with strategic implications on how the three longtime friends can band together to stare down China in the coming decades.The three governments have agreed to a highly complex three-part deal that will come in stages to stagger the massive industrial muscle movements necessary to carry it through, according to two people close to the talks. The people, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity to speak about the deal before it is formally announced.Most immediately, Australia is expected to serve as a forward base for a small number of U.S. submarines by the end o...

Zelenskyy has no choice but to ask his fighters to hold Bakhmut — for now

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was famously averse to retreating. “However skillfully effected a retreat may be, it always lessens the morale of an army,” he noted. “In a battle the enemy loses practically as much as you do; while in a retreat you lose and he does not.”Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to be of like mind — over the course of the war, he was reluctant to pull out of the salt-mining town of Soledar earlier this year after a nearly six month-long fight, and he has now rejected calls to withdraw from an even more prolonged and ferocious fight in nearby Bakhmut.There’s been some behind-the-scenes disquiet among the Ukrainian ranks about continuing with this almost 9-month-long battle at Bakhmut. And earlier this week, United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters that “if the Ukrainians decide to reposition, I wouldn’t view that as an operational or strategic setback.”Russia, meanwhile, has...

‘No one wanted to employ me’: Fiona Hill lifts the lid on life after Downing Street

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

LONDON — Theresa May’s all-powerful former chief of staff Fiona Hill has revealed her despair at being fired from Downing Street in 2017, and told how she struggled for “years” to find work in the aftermath.Hill — one of the most powerful women in Britain as May’s joint-chief of staff in No. 10 — was forced to resign amid a flurry of bad headlines after the disastrous 2017 general election, in which May lost her majority. In a rare interview with POLITICO’s Westminster Insider podcast, Hill said she was “in shock” after the June 2017 result and unable to find work for an extended period.“I was worried about money and I was worried about what I would do next,” she said.“I remember thinking — ‘I do not want to become a bitter person,’” she added. “I read the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi over and over again. It was almost like doing the rosary or something. “It was just something in my head, I was fixated with it. I kept saying to m...

Sunak and Macron seek Indo-Pacific team-up at Paris summit

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

LONDON — Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron will discuss combining British and French military resources in the Indo-Pacific region when the pair meet Friday.At a bilateral summit in Paris — the first between a British prime minister and a French president in five years — the two leaders are expected to send a strong message of unity to the Kremlin and pledge continued support to Ukraine in its fight against Russia.And No. 10 Downing Street said ahead of the meeting that the pair will talk about ways to ensure a permanent presence of like-minded European allies in the Indo-Pacific, where China is increasingly assertive.This could include an agreement to place European warships permanently in the region by alternating the deployment of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales carriers and France’s Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier.Sunak’s official spokesman told reporters that Europe’s security “is indivisible from Indo-Pacific security, so the U.K. will work together to incr...

North End residents discuss neighborhood’s outdoor dining debate

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

A group of residents in Boston’s North End neighborhood gathered Thursday to discuss developments in the neighborhood’s ongoing debate over outdoor dining. The North End Residents’ Association held the meeting to hear what community members had to say. Speaking during the event, some backed recent actions by Mayor Michelle Wu, saying they don’t want outdoor dining in the area.“People don’t understand, it’s not just cars on the street, there are all of the serving stations, there are the umbrella tables, there are the dividers between restaurants,” Mary McGee told 7NEWS.“There are ten thousand plus residents and everybody seems to have forgotten about us,” McGee continued. Boston city officials announced new outdoor dining rules earlier this year requiring restaurants in the North End to take tables off streets. Under the new policy, outdoor dining in the North End will be limited to sidewalks and patios. Where some residents have celebrate...

Mobile betting launches tomorrow in Massachusetts

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

The wait for mobile betting in Massachusetts is almost over, as betting apps get set to go live Friday morning. While sports wagers are in the spotlight, other topics are also on the table.Experts have said the apps that have been approved in Massachusetts will be taking bets from people who are aged 21 or older on awards shows such as the Academy Awards as well as the sports bets that have been made physically at casinos since in-person sports betting launched in Massachusetts back in January. This, experts say, could open many doors for those who wouldn’t typically bet on sports but who still want to test their luck. “[T]hat’s the secret sauce right there,” Bill Speros, a senior betting analyst at Bookies.com said. Speros said the betting is a win-win for some parties involved, not only getting people to wager on events they wouldn’t normally watch, but also getting people to watch events because they wagered on them. “It drives fan engagement through the...

Nets rally from down 22, fall short in loss to Bucks

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:49 GMT

Stars or no stars, the Nets remain one of the more resilient teams in all of basketball.That much became clear as they clawed back from down 22 to make it a tight game down the stretch before the Bucks pulled away for a 118-113 victory over the Nets in Milwaukee.And it marked the fourth time in the aftermath of the trades that sent Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving out West that the Nets have erased a significant double-digit deficit against a quality opponent.The Nets set a new record for largest comeback of this season when they erased the Celtics’ 28-point advantage to secure a 115-105 victory on the road in Boston on March 3.They came back from down 18 to lose in Atlanta on Trae Young’s buzzer-beating, game-winning floater on Feb 26.And in the hours that followed the Durant deal on the night of the Feb. 9 trade deadline, the Nets erased a 13-point deficit to defeat Chicago Bulls, 116-105.Then came Thursday.The Bucks put all their starters on the floor minus their MVP can...